I have been wanting to do something meta with this job hunt thing for awhile now. E.g., the way that recruiters use the provision of health and insurance benefits as a carrot or part of the "package". In other words, there's apparently gold in them thar hills on their view. Somehow, they're making out by providing the contractor with health insurance. That incestuous relationship is one that ought to be explored.
Years ago, Dororthy Sue Cobble argued in _Dishing it Out_ that we need a new union model. She argued that, the older model was based on male-dominated jobs and was no good for the new service economy. I used to use this book to teach sociology of work and the professions. So, where to look for a model of a new union? Cobble looked at waitress unions. At one time, 25% of all waitresses were unionized. Betchya didna know that, didja? There were more like a good recruiting agency, these waitress unions. They acted like brokers between a pool of waitresses in a city and the restaurants that needed waitresses.
So, in all this, what I've been working on in the back o' me pea brain is how this would work. If Cobble's right, then the nexus between employer and employee at the point of employment -- is it possible that this is where to build a new model for unionizing? Mostly, watching the way recruiters have become this broker -- how it's been privatized, etc.
Now I got to thinking this on the way home from meeting with a more solid recruiter (tho I have some reservations). Anyway, I did my usual thing: i'm far too enthusiastic about instructional design, training, etc. and business development. I have a (sick for a lefty) knack for always thinking in terms of business dev. In the course of that closing conversation where we'd both wandered off the reservation, he said something about how you get jobs: networking. Which is a no brainer, for me, given my research background in unemployment, retraining, worker transition. But working your network can be difficult for some folks. E.g., my local network is useless b/c they are not in same industry, zip. So, the whole recruitment game has grown up in the wake of increasingly isolated lives, the complications of networking which can be that you may be competing against people you know, so information doesn't get shared, discomfort with networking. I could go on.
I'm not sure what I'm saying, but somehow or other, I wish I had more time to think through this issue: how unions or something like a union -- even a model of worker organization and movement building *at* this nexus (not unlike the way Christians do this in Ehrenreich's Bait and Switch) -- might be feasible.
Who knows someone doling out a 100k grant for me to do research on this for a year? *grin*
There are a crapload of downsides to it, but I think there is something to it. I've mostly been thinking of the drawbacks. e.g., it works best when econ is good. it's not exactly a union where you can enforce solidarity -- as in people not going to work for an employer because they suck. The way the waitress unions works is that they ensured employers with trained staff and would only provide wait staff for companies that paid a certain wage, enforced safety standards, weren't not really in the business of pimping out wait staff,etc.
Anyway, I was phoned by some supposedly executive recruiter for a local posish later and they specifically asked if I'd applied for the company. They made me digitially sign a non-disclosure agreement and then asked.
Well, I got my answer. An ethical recruiter is not interested in a candidate who's already applied and shouldn't be. For one, it may be a waste of time. e.g., if the candidate already went thru the HR screening and wasn't plucked, then they had reasons for eliminating the candidate. (Caveat: of course they may not be good reasons.)
As for brainbench, I asked because brainbench thinks I'm a sr. PHP dev and I say NOT. I'm think tht the testing process has to be the suckage for that to happen. I'm self criticial in a healthy way I think, so I'm not so overly negative that I don't know when I have talent. But I'm seriously not clued enough to be an actual SR. developer. Give me six months, since PHP is easy, but I'd go nuts faking it on the job for that first six months. Criminy.
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